The Transhumanist Movement: Scientist Leon Kass

Scientist Leon Kass is another doomsayer to the transhumanist movement, and he believes that our human nature is the way it is for a reason, and there is not a reason to tamper with it as it may detract from our humanity. In addition, political scientist Francis Fukuyama claims that there is a “dignity…unique to human beings,” that might be lost in a transition from our purely biological existence (Bostrom; Downes and Machery, 578). However, history is full of naysayers whose woes and sentiments were drowned out by the huge benefits of technological advancement. In classical Greece, “Socrates bemoaned the development of writing.” His fear was that people would rely more on the information they’d written down than recalling it from memory, which …show more content…
In the 1400s at the arrival of the printing press, “Italian humanist Hieronimo Squarciafico worried that the easy availability of books would lead to intellectual laziness, making men “less studious” and weakening their mind,” (Mauk and Metz, 361). Once again, while the naysayer’s concerns manifested themselves to a degree, the benefits so hugely outweighed them that they were forgotten. Could not the naysayers to transhumanism be wrong in the same way? Perhaps their concerns are legitimate, but the benefits to biotechnological advancement far exceed their drawbacks.
Oxford professor, philosopher, and transhumanist Nick Bostrom thinks so. In his essay titled In Defense of Posthuman Dignity (2005) he quickly defines the transhumanist movement, identifies two common fears of anti-transhumanists, and attempts to falsify their fears. The first main fear he identifies is the one expressed by Kass and Fukuyama: that becoming or being “posthuman” will harm us or detract from our dignity. As Kass states, “We need a particular regard and respect for the special gift that is our own given nature.” …show more content…
Today, computer-driven cars are not available on the market, but they exist. In 2007, six teams of engineers were able to complete a 60-mile driving course using a completely autonomous vehicle. The most advanced cars on the market today can already do corrective steering, parallel parking, location detection, and internet and phone connection. Within the next decade it would not be overzealous to claim that if not for political issues, driverless cars could appear regularly on the road. Though this is not technically biotech, it has positive implications for humans. “In the future, the words car accident may gradually disappear from the English language,” explains Kaku, which lends credit to the idea that the human experience can be greatly improved, as currently 40,000 people die from car accidents per year in the U.S. alone (Kaku,